White Chocolate Baked Cheesecake Recipe

by | Mar 7, 2014 | Baking, Cooking-Tutorials, Tutorial

For last Billy Idol Day/Christmas I made white satin cheesecake for our desserts and it was one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever had. Seriously White chocolate and cheesecake = total win.

My recipe was based on this recipe from the KitchenAid website with quite a few changes along the way.

You need:

Base

  • Packet of chocolate Digestive biscuits
  • 150g unsalted butter, melted
  • ⅓ cup (80g) castor sugar

Filling

  • 1 block of white chocolate
  • 500g cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • ⅓ cup  castor sugar
  • 1 tbs cornflour
  • 3 eggs
  • A little lemon rind and 1 tbsp juice
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 500g vanilla yoghurt

Let’s get baking! We are making the curst first.

 

Put the biscuits into a food processor and crush them into tiny crumbs. Mix in the sugar too then pour in the butter to hold it all together.
I decided to make them in little jars rather than as a large cheesecake (more on this later) so prepare your pan/jars and preheat your oven to 160C fan forced.
Spoon some of the crust mixture into the jars and press it down a bit. Pop the jars into the fridge to cool the crust.
Make sure you have comfy shoes to bake in!
Ok, let’s get the filling ready!
Break the chocolate into chunks and melt it.
Beat the sugar and cream cheese together until they’re smooth and light. Add in the corn flour and beat again for a few seconds.
Add in the eggs next and mix thoroughly.
 Add everything else (lemon juice, vanilla and yoghurt etc) in and mix very gently.
Lastly add in the chocolate and give it one final mix. The batter should be light and about the consistency of yoghurt.
Take the jars out of the fridge and fill them with the batter. I layered the batter with more crumbs on top so you didn’t have to dig all the way through to get it. I also added some edible glitter… because I can.
Once you are ready to put them in the oven you need to prepare a pan to put them in. You will need a pan which is as deep as the cheesecake. Put them in and then fill the pan with water so it is level with the top of the cheesecake (don’t get water in the actual jars though!). This water protects the cheesecake and makes sure it is baked evenly. My pan wasn’t deep enough because the jars were very tall so the tops of my cheesecake were a bit tough whereas the parts protected with water was DELICIOUS.
Bake them in the oven for around 45 minutes then turn off the oven and open the door to let it cool gradually for another hour or so. After that, pop them into the fridge to cool properly.
Now just add some decoration and enjoy! Try to stop at eating just one, it’s pretty much impossible!
You can add in jams, berries or anything else for a flavour kick but I love the flavour of baked cheesecake plain. It’s delicious!
I want to make a really big one again now! Let me know if you try it out!

Needle Felted VLB Patch Tutorial

by | Feb 28, 2014 | Craft, Other-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Today’s tutorial is a request from members of The VLB 😀 The VLB is my monthly *cough*most of the time *cough* newsletter which includes all kinds of awesome things and the logo is a crest representing everything we’re about.
 

The original crest itself is a little complicated for a quick and easy needle felting project so I’ve just made a simplified version that hopefully you guys can follow along with and make your own!
You’ll need some yellow felt and other general needle felting supplies.
First cut the general crest shape out of the yellow felt.
Apply light green wool in the shapes shown below:
Fill in the opposite corner with pink wool.
Cut out a little crown from the yellow and needle it to the top of the crest, add a little red heart to the middle. My heart looks more like a circle… but whatever >_>
Now add some big fluffy white wings behind it.
Lastly use some light purple wool to write the letters VLB in each section. The last section has a heart in mine but you can add your own initials.
Done! Now you can needle felt it to a piece of clothing or put a pin on the back so you can wear it anywhere.
Cuuute!
Thank you so much to the members of the VLB for this awesome idea, make sure you send me some photos of yours so I can put them in the newsletter! If you want to sign up, just check out the page here.

How To Make Your Own Lip Scrub

by | Feb 26, 2014 | Beauty, Beauty-Tutorials, Tutorial

I’ve been looking a bit into some more DIY beauty options this year while we save up for a house. A lot of the more generic beauty treatments are really easy to make at home.

I was sent one of the Lush Lip Scrubs by their PR department and while it’s great, the ingredients are things you would find in your kitchen so whether it’s worth purchasing I guess depends on your budget. For me, repurchasing at $9.95 is unfeasible so kitchen cupboard here I come!
To make your own lip scrub you will need:
  • Sugar
  • Oil
  • Flavour if you want it to smell/taste good, I’m using strawberry
Pour out a few teaspoons of sugar, I used 3 and it was waaay too much.
Mix in 1tsp of oil.
Add a drop of flavour and mix that in.
Mix as thoroughly as you like, so long as it’s all wet with the oil it really doesn’t matter as you’re just going to be scrubbing it around. In terms of oil, I used generic vegetable oil because that’s all I had but you could use anything including coconut oil for something which has some added benefits.
Done! Now rub on your lips and try not to lick it off… or don’t try… it tastes awesome.
Easy! Now go enjoy spending your money on something else which is important to you… or be responsible and save it if you want to be boring like me 😀

How To Make A Triple Headband – Tutorial

by | Feb 24, 2014 | Craft, Hair-Accessory-Tutorials, Tutorial

Today’s project is making a bunch of thin headbands into one super headband. MEGA HEADBAND, ASSEMBLE!

You will need:
  • 3 thin headbands
  • Embroidery thread
  • Hot glue gun
  • Tooth picks
Snip off the ends of the toothpicks, this is how we will keep the headbands apart so they don’t touch.
Hot glue a little piece of toothpick between each headband at the end.
You can vary the angle of the headbands depending on how thick the toothpicks are and how they sit.
Now wrap the ends in embroidery thread and glue it in place.
See now the tops sit apart:
And it looks adorable on!
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, let me know if you give it a try!

 

Make Your Own Needle Felt Hat

by | Feb 21, 2014 | Clothing-Tutorials, Craft, Tutorial

Ok it’s the time of year where I get really into hats again. It’s probably because I’ve been watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and I want ALL THE CLOCHES.
So… I decided to give making one a try. It didn’t turn out too badly actually and now that I know how much the felt shrinks I think I’m going to get a bit more adventurous next time and make something more impressive.

I used the easiest technique: needle felting.
Basically I made a big circle and stabbed at it until it was fairly sturdy, then I built upwards to eventually close in the top with more felt.
It took a lot of needling, more than I’ve done for any project but for something like a hat you really want the felt to be tight and secure.
Looking slightly more hat-ish at this point.
Once the main hat shape was done I started to shape a small brim.
To force the shape more I needled directly on the brim line.
Lastly I added a little white band that ended in a bow out of some more wool roving which was twisted together.
Taadaa cute!
I love the colour and shape of how it turned out. I’m thinking of doing some more traditionally 1920’s styles next to let our my inner Phryne!
One of these days I’m going to bob my hair, find a companion and solve some kind of murder mystery!

DIY Nail Polish Holder – Tutorial

by | Feb 19, 2014 | Beauty, Beauty-Tutorials, Tutorial

Ok so I keep seeing these nail polish bottle holders for sale and while the idea is kind of useful, it just seems kind of a bit much to spend that kind of money on something that you can make in 30 seconds with a piece of wire…

Literally all you need is some thick-ish jewellery wire and some pliers to snip it (and curl the ends around if you want to get fancy… or safe).
Cut off a length of wire, maybe 30cm depending on how huge your polish bottles generally are… then curl it into a spiral. I got all upmarket and twisted the ends over so I didn’t stab myself with it later.
Make the spiral wider on the bottom so it has a steady base.
Now bend the spiral over it’s lopsided and the polish bottle will tip a bit.
Insert the polish bottle and you’re done…
Now you can access the polish more easily and didn’t have to pay any money for the privilege. Of course you could just, you know, tip the bottle slightly… but who has time for that anyway 😛